Your Right to Know

JobsOhio spent tax dollars on parking for employees, on a reimbursement for a NCAA men’s
basketball tournament sponsorship and for the Toledo Mud Hens to market northwestern Ohio for
jobs.

In 18 months, Gov. John Kasich’s privatized development agency spent $6,725 in tax dollars on
wireless phone bills, about $11,000 for parking and at least $291,000 to build and maintain
JobsOhio-related websites, according to a
Dispatch analysis of receipts detailing the public spending.

JobsOhio’s $1.35 million “Thrive In Ohio” ad campaign, launched late last year and designed to “
deliver a rallying message that Ohioans are getting back to work,” included mostly in-state ads and
also was paid for with public cash.

All of that spending, and more, was accounted for in the $8.4 million JobsOhio repaid the state
earlier this year for an infusion of tax money to get started. By paying the money back and ridding
itself of public dollars, JobsOhio has all but ensured that future detailed accounts of its
spending won’t be made.

Earlier this month, Kasich signed a bill that says the $100 million-a-year that JobsOhio will be
getting from a lease of state wholesale liquor profits is considered private money and cannot be
audited by state Auditor Dave Yost.

Yost currently is auditing JobsOhio’s finances for fiscal year 2012, which includes some of the
taxpayer money previously listed. But Yost, a Republican, also said that “since the returned money
occurred mid-year through (fiscal year) 2013, I’m not sure whether that will prevent us from
examining expenditures from those public funds or not.”

The
Dispatch’s analysis of the public spending also showed that JobsOhio used more than
$595,000 to pay the salaries of four of the agency’s more than 20 employees and spent additionally
on health and retirement benefits, even though the Ohio Revised Code declares JobsOhio employees to
be private employees. Employees paid out of the grant included Marlon Cheatham, who identifies
himself as JobsOhio’s marketing director in emails, and three others who executed development
projects claimed as victories by JobsOhio and who were identified publicly in the past as JobsOhio
employees.

But JobsOhio spokeswoman Laura Jones disputes that the four were “JobsOhio employees,” saying
they were employees of the little-known development agency JobsOhio acquired called the Ohio
Business Development Coalition. JobsOhio is the sole member of the former Business Development
Coalition (now called the JobsOhio Beverage System), which already had a grant contract with the
state to help with economic development.

Tax dollars can be used to pay for private employees if they’re doing the work outlined in the
contract, but details relating to such employees and their work typically are more readily
available to taxpayers than information about JobsOhio’s employees has been.

Most of the public money — $6.8 million — that JobsOhio received came through the grant
agreement between the state and the JobsOhio Beverage System.JobsOhio used part of the grant to
continue a program which dates back to 2008 and made about $1.9 million available for regional
development agencies to help them market their corners of the state.

Columbus 2020 received money through that same program — nearly $370,000. Part of it went to a
$58,500 report for the Columbus Council on World Affairs detailing the global ties existing in
Columbus’ economy and schools.

“The report was critical, actually,” said Columbus 2020 chief executive Ken McDonald. “We were
trying to build a consistent approach for attracting foreign direct investment. We didn’t have a
good figure for how diverse our economy was in terms of who is here until that report came along.
It uncovered close to 600 foreign companies in the market.”

The Toledo Mud Hens got $35,000 to house and pay a development professional to execute a
regional branding project. Wendy Gramza, a vice president for the chamber of commerce in Toledo,
said the Hens are iconic for northwestern Ohio and have had success branding themselves on a
national stage, so it made sense for their front office to play a role.

Among the fruits of the Toledo project was a website encompassing several counties in
northwestern Ohio, marketing all of the communities there under a single brand.

The Dayton Development Coalition got a $15,000 reimbursement for a sponsorship of the NCAA’s “
First Four” in Dayton, justifying it because of the region’s “substantial amount of ... attention
because of the First Four event” in media outlets across the country. President Barack Obama and
British Prime Minister David Cameron attended one of the tournament games there, more than 15,000
attended a First Four Festival — the Dayton community’s addition to official tournament events —
and the Dayton development community estimates millions of dollars were generated by the tournament
games being held there.

Cheatham, JobsOhio’s marketing director, in forwarding Dayton’s justification for the request to
the Kasich administration, said the grant dollars “may not be our first choice of tools to use” but
said the expense could be justified as “forwarding the Dayton brand to their target audience.”

JobsOhio has chosen to discontinue the state-funded regional grant program but could run a
similar program without state dollars.

“If there’s state investment, if you will, or a JobsOhio investment, if you want to call it
that, it would be great. We would love to continue that relationship,” Columbus 2020’s McDonald
said.